On view March 14th - June 8th
Artists: Rachel Klinghoffer, Allison Remus, Lauren Rice, Kate Sable
A quadrivium is an ancient educational curriculum comprising four primary subjects: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy. The purpose of this educational model was not only to become more knowledgeable, but to search for unification, to uncover a potential higher consciousness while investigating the mysteries of order. Within the abstract paintings included in this exhibition, one can identify various motifs that unexpectedly allude to topics in the quadrivium. For instance, there are constellations of innumerable dots, triangles, diamonds as well as complex, oddball shapes that escape easy recognition. There are stitched, chromatic grids containing hidden text and repetitive elements, either painted or assembled, that are buried inside shallow spatial fields. There are accumulating patterns and defiant, cutout voids. When the works of these four artists are placed side by side, the visual cacophonies reflect and echo, recalling a makeshift band of wayward instruments, borrowing each other's parts, forming unplanned harmonies, while refusing to stay in key.
A shared visual phenomenon in these artists’ work is the use of the rectangle. Acknowledging the four-sided frame as a common thread in a show of paintings may seem obvious, but it bears emphasis as each of these artists uses the rectilinear structure not only to contain, but to push against. The rectangle exists in these artists' work as a structure to prod, poke, tickle, layer, cut, embellish and encompass. While often containing disguised textual arrangements (Reimus), somewhat recognizable, anthropomorphized elements (Sable) or remnants of the physical world (Klinghoffer, Reimus and Rice), the paintings sit firmly in the realm of abstraction. The paintings made by these artist-mothers are evidence of the body, providing proof of labor–hours of cutting, stitching, layering, looking, longing. They are constructed sites of display within which to embed practical and sentimental ephemera. There is a physicality to all of the work–it is at once surface and object, shallow and deep, solid and porous, earthbound and enigmatic. The paintings’ boundaries are also deceptive. They call into question the secondary nature of the wall, the functional use of an object like a paintbrush or a shoelace–the practical becomes decoration, and vice versa.
This fellowship was created pre-motherhood. While each embarked on a journey into artist-motherhood with few role models, they formed and transformed identities parallel to one another. After more than 15 years of professional artistic practice, they continue to push against the edges, disrupting hierarchical structures, creating work that is soft, vulnerable, caring, available, obsessive, sentimental and laborious.
Rachel Klinghoffer is an artist and educator who makes objects that are both paintings and sculptures. By repurposing materials, making and remaking them into paintings and sculptures, Klinghoffer prompts a reimagining of uses for these relic-like objects. Articles reflect the artist’s personal connection to femininity, craft- making, Judaism, romance, pushing the definition of painting. Through time, the items become specimens, icons. They are poked, prodded, stained, sprayed, stroked, rubbed, dipped, then pulled, torn, cracked open and broken apart making up and becoming the new work. Rachel Klinghoffer has a MFA with Honors in Painting from Rhode Island School and a BFA in Painting with course work in Visual and Critical Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Select exhibitions and press include (solo show) One River School, Woodbury, NY; (solo show) The Skirt at Ortega y Gasset, Brooklyn, NY; Morgan Lehman, New York, NY; Kristen Lorello, New York, NY; BRIC, Brooklyn, NY. Klinghoffer’s work had been included in New American Paintings and reviewed by Whitehot Magazine and The Brooklyn Rail.
Allison Reimus's work lives somewhere between painting and fiber art. They are dyed, bleached, sewn, stretched and painted. She explores her relationship with motherhood, labor, patriarchy and domesticity through tactility and abstraction. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad. Recent solo exhibitions include Barely Fair (Chicago, IL), Jennifer Terzian Gallery (Litchfield, CT), Left Field Gallery (Los Osos, CA) and Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Chicago, IL). Recent group exhibitions include BravinLee Programs (NY, NY), Resident Assistant (Great Barrington, MA), (Essex Flowers (NY, NY), Unit London, (London, UK), and Massey Klein (NY, NY). Her work has been included in ArtMaze Magazine, Maake Magazine and New American Paintings (#88, #113, #125), where she was highlighted as both an "Editor's Selection" and a "Noteworthy Artist". Reviews include The Brooklyn Rail, The Boston Globe, Art Spiel and The Washington Post. Reimus lives with her husband and children in New Jersey by way of Brooklyn, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and Michigan. She earned her BFA from Michigan State University in 2005 and her MFA from American University in 2009.
Lauren Rice is a visual artist based in suburban Richmond, VA. Rice identifies as a painter, however she most often works on and with paper through the combined modalities of collage, painting, drawing and sculpture. Originally from Atlanta, GA, Rice has made her home in many American cities, including Detroit, Brooklyn, Washington DC and Athens, OH. She has exhibited her work in solo, collaborative and group exhibitions at venues such as Cuchifritos Gallery and Project Space (NYC), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (NYC), Neon Heater (Findlay, OH), ICA Baltimore (Baltimore), 1708 Gallery (Richmond), The Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art (Virginia Beach), Transformer (DC) and Spring Break Art Show (NYC), among many others. Rice has been a Fellowship Artist at The Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA and an artist-in-residence at The Luminary in St. Louis, MO. Her work has been published in New American Paintings, Maake Magazine, The Southeast Review, Art in Square Magazine and VAST Magazine. She is an Associate Professor of Art at Longwood University. Rice lives with her husband and artistic collaborator, Brian Barr, and their two children in a house with a garden on a street surrounded by big, old oak trees. For better or worse, Rice is a wearer of rose-colored glasses and is an avid supporter of underdogs.
Kate Sable is a process-led abstract painter who lives and works in the Washington, DC metro area. She holds an MFA in Painting from American University and BFA in Studio Art from Virginia Tech. Recent solo exhibitions include Morning Letters at Jennifer Terzian Gallery (Litchfield, CT), New River at Pazo Fine Art (Washington, D.C.), The Line as Folding at Virginia Tech’s Armory Gallery and Could I Have Been Just Anyone at Pazo Fine Art (Kensington, MD). Recent group exhibitions include Left Field Gallery (Los Osos, CA), Dickinson College (Carlisle, PA), River House Arts (Toledo, OH), Goucher College (Baltimore, MD), The Silva Gallery (Washington, D.C.), as well as group shows at Janice Charach Gallery (MI), Circle Contemporary (IL), and Art Enables (Washington, D.C.). Sable’s work has been featured in multiple editions of Art Maze Mag and has also been featured in Friend of the Artist and Air in Space. She has been interviewed for The American Scholar and Inertia Studio Visits, and the podcasts I Like Your Work and Beware the Artist. Her work has been reviewed in The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, and Two Coats of Paint.
